Romance of The Three Kingdoms 14 announced, due early 2020

Developer Koei has announced the 14th installment in its Romance of the Three Kingdoms grand strategy RPGs, and it will come to Steam early next year.

Koei said Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 will help return "classic gameplay" to the series by using the ruler-based systems from the 9th and 11th entries, which means all actions take place on a single, hex-based map. The aim is to gather and manage land during the fall of the Han Dynasty in ancient China, using diplomacy or force as needed.

"Greater individuality among characters will also be on display; with officers from the Three Kingdoms, like Liu Bei and Guan Yu, asserting themselves at various situations in order to fully immerse players into the game’s rich history," it said.

Koei, which did most of the development work on the new Fire Emblem game for the Switch that people have been raving about, will use a new AI system designed for repeat playthroughs—it sounds like the same rulers can have very different behavior between each campaign. "With organizations now determined through each ruler’s ideals, different game experiences are now possible via different rulers," Koei said.

"Even within the same faction; different policies now bring with them different strategies for expansion, making the wise use of various officers a cornerstone of advanced gameplay."

The Steam page is live here.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.